Lesotho's students' achievement in mathematics and their teachers' background and professional development

Abstract

The study sought to obtain information on the relationship, if any, between students' achievement and teacher background as well as between students’ achievement and professional development. The respective correlation coefficient showed that there was a significant relationship between students’ achievement and teacher background and an insignificant relationship between students’ achievement and the extent of professional development. Of the three components of teacher background (viz., qualification, subject major and teaching experience), teacher qualification showed the strongest significant relationship with students’ achievement, followed by level of subject major. But teaching experience displayed a curvilinear significant relationship with students’ achievement. It was concluded that quality qualifications and deep subject content knowledge tend to make teachers more effective while teachers improve and develop when they are exposed to quality professional development programmes.